set up a new machine and had some issues with torrents. dl'ed the realtek diagnostic utility and proceeded to turn off most
things, which solved it. depending on the nic you have in use, you may want to get its utility and play with the settings.
play as in turn off one at a time and see if it fixes your problem.
something that is appearing more and more is a feature called 'green ethernet' . basically what this does it cuts off unused
ports in routers and switches, and also plays around with the voltage provided to the in use ports, which can be a real pain
in the butt. if youre having issues? that would be the first thing to disable. some utilities let you chose between different
stages,others not. just disable it.